ABSTRACT
In the mid-sixteenth century, in the period immediately before and after the Schmalkaldic War, the city of Magdeburg became a vital centre for antiImperial agitation and pamphleteering. A crucial element of this process was the elaboration of what historians now call ‘resistance theory’: namely, the justification, via theological and legal reasoning, of active or passive disobedience to a superior political or legal authority. The development of resistance theory in general, seen as a fundamental component of modern doctrines of the state, has generated much study. However, its popular presentation has received much less attention. We know very little about how ordinary people might have understood the realities of resistance.
